Bond Girls

Bérénice Marlohe “SkyFall”

The glamorous Bond siren known as Severine in the 23rd Bond film “Skyfall” has brought back not only the full figured Bond Girl but a throwback from the Thunderball Bond Girls of Claudine Auger and Luciana Paluzzi.

Bérénice was born in Paris, France, daughter to a French mother and a Khmer-Chinese father. Her mother is a teacher and her father is a doctor. She originally held aspirations of becoming a pianist, as well as an artist, studying at the prestigious French arts school Conservatoire de Paris for ten years.

She had trouble getting on screen roles in France because people did not think she fit the mould of a French actress. Before Bond, her performances were primarily rooted in small roles on French TV.

She is known to be a strong believer in fate. During an interview, she claimed to have dreamt of acting alongside Javier Bardem six months before the Bond audition. After the dream, she knew that everything would be fine. It was not until the second audition forSkyfall that someone actually mentioned to her that Bardem might also be cast.

“I felt safe because I felt strongly connected with the Bond universe since many, many times so instinctively, I knew what I wanted to reach and Sam [Mendes] is so amazing because he’s so brilliant, but more than that, he’s a beautiful human being, with a wonderful sense of humor and you just feel at home and free to explore things. I could try everything I wanted to try, thanks to those amazing people,” she said.

“Skyfall” has already set a new UK record, breaking the UK box office record previously held by “Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part 2.” In its first week in theaters in the UK, “Skyfall” earned $59.86 million. “Deathly Hallows Part 2″ earned $57.4 million. The Bond flick is also the third-highest grossing film of the year in the UK, behind “The Dark Knight Rises” and “The Avengers.”

Kim Basinger

The Unofficial Bond Girl

Basinger’s breakout role was as Bond girl Domino Petachi in the unofficial non-Eon movie Never Say Never Again (1983), starring opposite Sean Connery. She posed nude for Playboy to promote the film. Basinger said Playboy led to opportunities such as Barry Levinson’s The Natural (1984), co-starring Robert Redford, for which she earned a Golden Globe nomination as Best Supporting Actress. She starred opposite Mickey Rourke in the sexually provocative 9½ Weeks (1986) and Vicki Vale, the female lead in Batman (1989). Basinger received a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture nomination for her work in The Natural (1984). She won an Academy Award, Golden Globe, and Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in L.A. Confidential (1997).

After her first divorce, Basinger dated casting director Jon Peters and singer Prince. Her second marriage was to the actor Alec Baldwin.

Some family members recommended Basinger buy the small town of Braselton, Georgia in 1989 for US$20 million, to establish as a tourist attraction with movie studios and film festival, but she met financial difficulties and sold it in 1993.

Denise Richards & Sophie Marceau

“The World Is Not Enough”

Denise Richards is an American actress and former fashion model. She achieved success during the late 1990s in several films, including Starship Troopers,Wild Things, and The World Is Not Enough . She a

lso appeared on the reality TV show, Denise Richards: It’s Complicated. Richards was cast as the nuclear-

physicist Christmas Jones in the 1999 James Bond film The World Is Not Enough (1999). Though she considered her role “brainy”, “athletic”, and having depth of character, she was criticized as not credible in the role. Her outfit, which often comprised

a low-cut tank top and tight shorts, elicited comments. She was ranked as one of the worst Bond girls of all time by Entertainment Weekly in 2008 and was chosen as “Worst Supporting Actress” at the 1999

Razzie Awards for the role.

Sophie Marceau achieved international recognition in 1995 as Princess Isabelle in Mel Gibson’s Braveheart. That year, she was part

of an ensemble of international actors in the French film directed by Michelangelo Antonioni and Wim Wenders, Beyond the Clouds where she had her first nude scene. As Elektra King in The World Is Not Enough she was one of the film’s two main villains; an oil heiress who wants to make her mark on the world by sealing an oil trade route with a nuclear explosion.

The World Is Not Enough plot revolves around the assassination of billionaire Sir Robert King by the terrorist Renard and Bond’s subsequent assignment to protect King’s daughter, Elektra, who had previously been held for ransom by Renard. During his assignment, Bond unravels a scheme to increase petroleum prices by triggering a nuclear meltdown in the waters of Istanbul.

Daniela Bianchi “From Russia With Love”

Daniela Bianchi

Italian actress, whose best known part was Tatiana Romanova in the 1963 James Bond movie From Russia with Love.

Born in Rome, she was the 1st runner-up in the 1960 Miss Universe contest, where she was also voted Miss Photogenic by the press. Her film career began in 1958. In From Russia with Love her voice was dubbed by Barbara Jefford.

She made a number of French and Italian movies after From Russia with Love, the last being Scacco Internazionale in 1968. One of her later films was Operation Kid Brother (also known as OK Connery and Operation Double 007), which was a James Bond spoof filmed in English (though Bianchi was again dubbed) and starring Sean Connery’s brother, Neil Connery. In 1970, she retired from acting to marry a Genoan shipping magnate, and they have a son.

Barbara Bach “The Spy Who Love Me”

Barbara Bach

In 1971, Bach co-starred with two other Bond girls, Claudine Auger and Barbara Bouchet in the mystery La Tarantola Dal Ventre Nero and had small roles in other Italian films.

In 1977, her role as the Russian spy Anya Amasova in The Spy Who Loved Me gained her recognition as an international sex symbol. Although her character Anya is seen as the first Bond girl who is an equal to Bond, since she is also an experienced spy, Bach still walked away from the film saying that Bond is “a chauvinist pig who uses girls to shield him against bullets. The following year she appeared in the movie Force 10 from Navarone. She lost a role to actress Shelley Hack when she auditioned for the television series Charlie’s Angels. Bach has 28 films to her credit. She appeared in Playboy several times, from 1977 to 1981, in 1985, and in 2008.

Bach met Ringo Starr on the set of the film Caveman in February 1980, and they were married on April 27, 1981, a few weeks after the film’s release. In recent years Bach has accompanied Starr on his tours and has appeared on some of Ringo’s music videos, playing on some of his songs.

Bach holds a master’s degree (UCLA, 1993) in psychology and was formerly hitched to both Eric Clapton and George Harrison.

I can’t believe Kim Basinger is 57 years old. She shares the same birthday as my mom and I’m 36! Even though she’s old enough to be my mom, I still have the hots for her. Here’s to Kim, the ultimate MILF!